Sir, – There are two elements to article 41.2, the recognition by the State of the importance of “duties in the home” and also that these duties are solely for women and mothers to undertake. Fintan O’Toole (Opinion & Analysis, January 30th) is right to say that the acceptance that this was “women’s work” was to do with the culture of the times, patriarchal and Catholic in the case of Ireland, but it was not limited to Ireland. Marriage bans and other sexist legislation existed in countries that did not have article 41.2 in their constitutions.
Thankfully, times have changed and continue to change. Despite article 41.2, Irish women work at the highest level in most workplaces and men do more of the housework and childcare than the men of the 1930s.
What hasn’t changed is that “duties in the home” remain to be done. The concept of “care”, while noble, does not cover all the unpaid daily tasks that are involved in running a home and family, without which society and the economy could not function.
It is still women who do more of this social labour than men, and both many women and many men would like to be freer from “economic necessity” to be able to give more time and care to it and to their families.
Children, especially, have a right to have their physical and emotional needs met and to have a safe home to live in.
It would be very simple to remove the association of home duties with woman and mothers only, by adding “man” and “fathers” to article 41.2. The Government instead is suggesting more radical change and the deletion of article 41.2 entirely and placing new wording in article 42B, an article concerned with children. “Home duties” are not confined to those with children, and it is insulting to older people and people who have disabilities who require care to equate them with children and that all their care should take place within the family.
Removing Article 41.2 will weaken the State’s recognition of the broadness of the social labour involved in caring for all our citizens and the changed wording will make invisible the fact that it is still often women who do the lion’s share of it.
Given that, as a State, we are failing to give all children that most basic of necessities, a safe home, and the fact that most families cannot afford to have someone at home even part-time, I suspect the Government sees this referendum as a useful distraction that makes it look like they are doing “something” by proposing symbolic change toward equality for women and men while weakening the onus on the State to ensure that all of us have the care and comforts of home that we will need throughout the life course.
As a feminist, I want both equality and strong State recognition and support for the work involved in looking after each other. I do not want to be forced to trade one for the weakening of the other.
Reluctantly, I will be voting No. – Yours, etc,
DEIRDRE BLAKE,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Many thanks to Fintan O’Toole for reminding us how things were in the bad old days of the “marriage bar”.
In the early 1960s, beginning a new job in a “semi-State” company, I was required to sign a paper stating that if I got married I would resign. I was angry and disgusted, but what could I do? If I hadn’t signed, I wouldn’t have got the job. So I kept quiet and signed.
Young people now find it hard to believe that such blatant discrimination existed, but it did and was widespread.
That is why it’s so important to get rid of the sexist Article 41.2 once and for all. – Yours, etc,
GRAINNE FARREN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole says that in the 1970s “women themselves accepted that paid work was a male prerogative”.
He attributes this, as one would expect of him, to conditioning brought about by “the church and broader patriarchal culture”. What he fails to mention is that, in a time of high unemployment, most citizens, and the State representing them, would have seen it as inequitable that some households should have two incomes while others scraped by on the dole. – Yours, etc,
ÁINE NÍ CHONAILL,
Clonakilty,
Co Cork.
Sir, – If we are scrambling for an explanation for “durable” in the Oxford or Cambridge dictionary, the game is surely up, constitutionally that is (Letters, January 31st).
In either case, “durable” at best refers to an inanimate object, and relationships, be they short or long, are certainly never inanimate. – Yours, etc,
AIDAN RODDY,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.
Sir, – Dr Tom Hickey (Letters, January 31st) states that, under the proposed constitutional amendment, a “casual ‘throuple’ would undoubtedly – and obviously – not” be considered a family by the courts.
What about committed, stable, and long-term throuples? – Yours, etc,
ANDREW ABBOTT,
Dublin 8.